Should I get the urge to splurge on the finest basmati rice in the city ’round 4 a.m., I have only to hop and skip a couple of blocks to King Palace on Church at Park. King Palace is a 24-hour Pakistani diner on a car wash lot. It carries an impeccable credential — cabbie approved. In fact, it’s often tough to find a table around midday when the cabbies take over the place, packing away the puffiest naan, and ordering, from the long steam table, curries of every heat and hue. The curries and naan, however, are not a match for the rice! The most delicate pedigreed grains. One forkful of this ambrosia, and I cried hooray. Now I need never again struggle to cook basmati rice at home (I know I will never achieve the King Palace standard).

Then a fellow ricehead says, “Oh, but the rice at Lahore Tikka House is just as good if not better.” So I take off for Little South Asia at farflung Gerrard and Greenwood. On this cloudy day, subcontinental bling shines out like the proverbial good deed in a naughty world: pinkish gold jewellery so intricate it can only have been made by the tiny fingers of skilled elves; diaphanous saris in colours never found in a box of Crayolas. On her visit to India, legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland cried out: “Pink is the navy blue of India.” But my favourite colour is that intense blue-green, not quite sea green, not quite turquoise, a colour good enough to eat.

Talking about eating, now I’ve reached Lahore Tikka House or, I should say, the new LTH, because finally after years of promises of a dining room — there is one! Other restaurants, eat your heart out. LTH has such a loyal fan base that for yonks, customers have lined up to eat in trailers parked alongside the always-about-to-be renovated house — and loved it! Now the large rust-coloured house has a dining room on its first floor. My first thought is, “I hope they haven’t over-gentrified.” I liked the informal picnic atmosphere of the trailers. Panic, off. The dining room is vast and looks like a commissary with joyfully garish artifacts; the lobby has woven silver seats.

We choose a place at one of the long communal tables and make our picks from a flimsy flyer. Then we take it to the counter and pick up a number on a stand so a server can identify us easily. I note a fellow diner is using silverware. He must have sneaked it in because we get regulation plastic cutlery and the same old paper plates.
The menu is eclectic, but don’t expect to see any pork dishes or beer in this Muslim restaurant. We ponder chicken. No to chicken tikka masala. We haven’t come to Pakistan to eat Britain’s national dish, invented in Birmingham! Now Afghani chicken Tikka (eight bits and pieces; $8.99) is more like it. The Northwestern Frontiersmen prefer mildly spiced food and the chicken is gently spiced with lemon, black pepper, yogourt and garlic, then grilled. Lala’s Machlie red snapper ($15.99) is amiably rather than aggressively flavoured, with the customary combo of spices fried to perfection and delivered whole with roasted potatoes, chunks of tomato and peppers. The naan ($1.25) arrives hot from the Tandoor (Pakistan invention), kissing cousin of the wood-fired oven and capable of producing the same superlative and crusty bread.

Now we encounter two puzzles. We and LTH part company on the preparation of two favourites. Tarka dal ($7.50) is a bowl of yellow lentils cooked with seasoned butter. We’d expected the more familiar soupy dal and are disappointed. Another perennial fave is muttar paneer ($7.50), little cubes of fried curd cheese and peas, which have always — at least in my experience — come in a tomatoey sauce. Here the dish is on the dry side.

Spirits drooping a little, we turn to the rice ($3.50). It’s nudging perfection, tipped with presumably turmeric and/or chili. To end, we try a kulfi, frozen custard on a stick. With a flavour of boiled milk, it’s an acquired taste.